July 13, 2017 4:52pm EDTJuly 13, 2017 4:52pm EDTAmerican Football, English, NFL, Cleveland Browns, St. Louis RamsThe Rams left Warner exposed in the 1999 expansion draft. Had he been taken, Warner said it would've been fun winning a title in Cleveland.Kurt Warner(Getty Images)

The Browns have never won a Super Bowl. They are one of only four NFL teams to have never even played in a Super Bowl.

Things might have been different had they selected a little-known quarterback in the 1999 expansion draft.

The Rams left backup quarterback Kurt Warner exposed when the Browns returned to the NFL three years after the franchise's previous incarnation moved to Baltimore to become the Ravens. The Browns selected Buccaneers backup Scott Milanovich in the expansion draft and later added former Packers backups Ty Detmer and Doug Pederson before selecting Tim Couch with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft.

But what would have happened had they taken Warner instead of Milanovich? Warner, who won a Super Bowl with the Rams later that same season, believes he could have taken the Browns "to places they’ve never been before."

"Had I gone to Cleveland, how would my career be different? I have no idea,” Warner said Wednesday during a Pro Football Hall of Fame conference call. "It would have been fun to win a Super Bowl in Cleveland, though. But I think when you’re going through the process, and you get to this point I always felt like wherever I was, I'd be successful.

"A lot of people I think when they see my career, they hear or they remember, sat on the bench for four years in college, got cut by the Packers, worked in a grocery store and then won the Super Bowl. That’s kind of the timeline that people see when they hear Kurt Warner. When I look at the timeline, I look at it and say, ‘Played one year in college, was player of the year in my conference, I played three years in Arena Football, went to the Arena Bowl twice and was voted the best quarterback in the league all three seasons, went to Europe for a year and was the top quarterback statistically the season I played there. So I look at it and say every time I played I was successful. Everybody else looks at it and says he didn’t play very much. So there were two different perspectives on it."

Warner was the NFL MVP in 1999 and again in 2001, when he led the Rams back to the Super Bowl, and later helped the Cardinals reach their only Super Bowl in 2008. Becoming a starter was all a game of chance, after Rams starter Trent Green suffered a season-ending knee injury in a preseason game.

Warner understood why the Rams left him exposed, but staying in St. Louis worked out pretty well. He will be inducted into the Hall of Fame Aug. 5, along with former Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson, former Seahawks safety Kenny Easley, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, former Broncos running back Terrell Davis, former Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor and former Saints and Falcons kicker Morten Andersen.

While Warner went on to have stunning success with the Rams, Milanovich never threw a pass for the Browns, who have had a turnstile at quarterback ever since and are joined by only the Jaguars, Texans and Lions as teams to have never played in a Super Bowl.

"Had I gone to Cleveland, I would have expected nothing else but to have success, somehow, some way, some form," Warner said. "Had I been on the field, I would have expected to play well and have success.

"We joke, I would have loved to have won a Super Bowl in Cleveland or gone to a Super Bowl in Cleveland. I believe had I gone there and had a chance to play, I would have helped that franchise go to places they’ve never been before. Whether it’s arrogance or confidence or whatever you want to call it, that was my mentality when I stepped between the lines on a football field that I was going to make my team and somehow, some way, I was going to find a way to succeed."